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OASIS

Functionality
The Future
Technical Details
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OASIS Logo What is OASIS?

OASIS = Online Academic Support and Information System

OASIS is Heidelberg's secure, homegrown system for providing timely, personalized academic information to students, faculty, and administrative staff via the web. OASIS works in conjunction with Heidelberg's administrative database system to provide immediate access to campus constituents via an intuitive interface.

Where is OASIS?

OASIS is accessible from any computer connected to the Internet. Heidelberg students, faculty, and staff with OASIS accounts can visit http://oasis.heidelberg.edu to access the system.
Brief History

OASIS started with the idea that Heidelberg students and faculty should have real-time access to academic information in a familiar environment (the web). Developed in a symbiosis between our Registrar, best suited to understanding our unique requirements for presenting academic information, and our information technology staff, best suited to developing a technical solution within our existing framework, the initial version of OASIS "went live" in November of 2000. The system maintains the Heidelberg "look-and-feel" and provides the right kind of information, right away. Commercial web-based solutions do exist, but out of the necessity of the marketplace, such products try too hard to be all things to all institutions. Sometimes, institutional identity and important flexibility suffer in such systems. By developing our own tools customized to our own requirements, we believe we can best meet the unique needs of our academic population. Our use of freely available tools for web system development allows OASIS to grow and evolve rapidly, meeting new needs as quickly as they are identified and incorporating the changes our users desire.

Functionality

OASIS is a living, breathing entity. New functions continue to be added rapidly as new challenges and requirements are identified. Some of the features OASIS currently provides include
  • Student services. All active students (full-time or part-time; undergraduate, graduate, or non-degree seeking) on the main (Tiffin) and Maumee campuses are granted OASIS access. Via the web, any of these students has access to his/her
  • Registration data. Students may view their schedule of courses for any pending terms.
  • Grade cards. Students may display their midterm and final "grade cards" for the current term, provided their record is not on administrative hold. As soon as grades are submitted by instructors, those changes are reflected in the student's electronic grade card.
  • Academic standing. Students can see their current term and cumulative GPA, majors, minors, concentrations, tracks, academic standing, etc.
  • Advisor information. Students can email their advisor directly via a hypertext link.
  • Address information. Students can view the address information currently on file, to verify its accuracy. Students can also see their current preferred email address and campus mailbox combination.
  • Academic transcript. Students can view and print a current, unofficial transcript of their academic record at any time, provided their record is not on an administrative hold. If the record is on hold, the system will display an informative message describing why the hold has been placed on the student record.
  • Account information. Students have access to their current account balance, as well as to detailed lists of transactions organized by academic term.
  • Real-time class lists. Faculty have instant access to real-time class lists that provide detailed information about their students, e.g. class, contact information (email, phone, etc.), majors, minors, concentrations, advisors, registration status, etc. Program directors and department chairs also utilize OASIS class lists to help make important scheduling decisions.
  • Major/minor lists. Department chairs have up-to-the-minute lists of students majoring and minoring in their departments, along with details about students' concentrations (tracks) and contact information.
  • Electronic grade submission. All faculty submit course grades via OASIS. Grades are instantly rolled to academic history and immediately available to students and advisors on the web, reducing the burdensome grade transcription process.
  • Advisor services. All academic advisors have real-time, web-based access to important information about their advisees. Advisors can see contact information for each of their advisees, as well summary or detailed listings of their advisees' curricula and courses of study. Advisors can view an advisee's academic transcript sorted by term or subject (useful for planning), as well as detailed information about student's majors, minors, concentrations, tracks, etc. Academic information is also available to key administrative personnel (e.g. the Registrar, program directors, etc.) on a need-to-know basis.
  • Schedule of classes. OASIS extends our on-line REG system by providing a real-time schedule of classes for any enabled term. Students and faculty can search for all courses offered during a particular term by course reference number, course number (e.g. BIO 101), or academic prefix (e.g. BIO). The system also shows the number of seats still available in a course, meeting times, locations, instructors, and beginning and end dates. A concise summary of all closed courses is also available, helping students to plan alternative sections during the registration process.
  • Administrative services. Administrative and academic budget managers can view their organizational budgets and balances in real time, request temporary or permanent budget transfers, and complete purchase requisitions via the OASIS system.
  • Admission applications. OASIS provides on-line admission applications for prospective undergraduate and international students. Once an application is completed, it is submitted to the appropriate admission officers electronically.
The Future

We believe OASIS is in its infancy, and we continue to plan new, exciting, and useful features for the system. For us, the major attraction of the homegrown approach is its ability to adapt rapidly to new and changing requirements. For additional information about OASIS, contact the Office of the Registrar (registrar@heidelberg.edu), or send email to oasis@heidelberg.edu.

Technical Details

OASIS makes use of several open source/BSD-style license development tools, which facilitates rapid system extension and prototyping. The majority of the source code is written in XHTML, PHP (www.php.net), and ECMAScript (www.ecma.ch). Newer portions of the OASIS system utilize the Smarty template engine (smarty.php.net) for easier development and enhanced performance. These newer sections also make use of the overLIB JavaScript library (www.bosrup.com/web/overlib) to facilitate the creation of popup information boxes and help text.

Homegrown query libraries provide the backend connection to an ORACLE® database running the SCT® Banner2000™ integrated database system. Object-oriented hooks to the database are provided with slight local extensions to the PHPLIB library (phplib.sourceforge.net), and database queries are executed using SQL. ORACLE® and Banner2000™ provide the real-time data repository. The caliber and design of these two commercial products, combined with the openness and ease-of-use of the aforementioned languages and tools, make it simple to rapidly develop new features and functionality.

The system uses secure sockets layer (SSL) transport to provide secure, encrypted transmission of all information to the web client. The open source Apache web server (www.apache.org) is compiled with the OpenSSL (www.openssl.org) and modSSL (www.modssl.org) libraries. The commercial but freely-available Zend Optimizer™ (www.zend.com) enhances the performance of the PHP module, which is also compiled into the web server. As of February, 2003, OASIS consists of roughly 38,500 lines of source code.

A note on trademarks:

Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this document, and Heidelberg College was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in caps or initial caps. However, Heidelberg College cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information. ORACLE® and all Oracle-based trademarks are trademarks or registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation, Inc., in the United States and other countries. Banner and SCT are registered trademarks, and Banner2000 is a trademark, of Systems & Computer Technology Corporation. The Zend Optimizer is a trademark of Zend Technologies Ltd.

Contact Information
Office of the Registrar
Heidelberg College
310 E. Market St.
Tiffin, OH 44883

phone: (419) 448-2090
fax: (419) 448-2122
 
Amanda Steele,
Registrar
registrar@heidelberg.edu
Cindy Hay,
Assistant Registrar
Schedule of Classes
chay@heidelberg.edu
Mary Milazzo,
Information Specialist
Enrollment Verification
mmilazzo@heidelberg.edu
Linda Fatzinger,
Transcript Clerk
Transcripts
Transfer Evaluations
lfatzing@heidelberg.edu

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